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"I don't want to hear a peep out of you!"

Those words actually came out of my mouth towards my two year old son. After many successful bedtimes, he was suddenly starting to test limits. The bedtime routine was the same every night. But - one night he decided to see how much he could get away with. His defiance of bedtime was not blatant or angry. Instead - he was sneaky and creative - smiling at us with a totally innocent look on his face.

He would get in bed and every five minutes would call out to us. "I need to go to the bathroom", "There's something under my bed", "Can I have a drink of water?". At first - we thought he really needed something and would answer, but after the first three requests, we realized we were being conned by a two year old!

So - we set limits. He'd ask for a glass of water and we'd tell him he already had one. He'd ask to go to the bathroom and we told him he already went. He told us there were monsters under the bed and we told him we already checked! After 30 minutes of this, I had enough and was at the limit of my patience. I walked into his room and in a very stern voice, reminded him that bedtime meant he had to go to sleep. That's what I made the statement, "You are done asking for things after bedtime. I do not want to hear so much as a peep out of you!" I turned and walked out into the living room and rolled my eyes at my husband. He was as frazzled as I was and we anxiously awaited to see how our toddler would react.

Five minutes passed and all was quiet. Ten minutes passed and still all was quiet. The more time that passed, the more relaxed hubby and I got. We started thinking that the limits worked all due to our excellent parenting techniques! We looked at each other with pride and a feeling of being able to conquer anything that came our way. If we could conquer a toddler's defiance, we could climb mountains! We could go sky diving! We could actually make our kids pick up their toys by themselves!

One word shattered every illusion. It came after about 30 minutes of silence. We heard a higher-pitched almost-whispered toddler voice float out from the bedroom. That one word? "peep"

We ignored it, which was hard to do, since we were holding in gales of laughter. I had my hands pressed to my eyes, trying to keep my eye twitching to a minimum. My wonderful husband had both hands clasped over his mouth and was doing his best not to *snork* out loud.

Sometimes managing defiance means ignoring the small tests - keeping your eyes on the main goal. Sometimes managing defiance means recognizing that as parents - we are fallible and kids are trying to find out how much. But - most of all - it means that families, with all their issues and trials, should enjoy each other and be able to laugh at the situations we can get ourselves into.

Learn more about this author, Linda J Banks.
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